Wisdom is how you live and how you interpret what your mother
and father, what your grandmothers and grandfathers have told you about
this world - and then how you interpret that into the fact of living every day."
The key words here are 'how you live'.
Time, then, to stop and introspect on how we live our life.
Do we:
drift from day to day, aimlessly, just doing our chores and what is required of us?
fill our days with noise and activity because otherwise we would be forced to face ourselves?
embrace solitude?
seek to make our life tranquil?
try to be easygoing instead of being hyper about everything?
believe that only we have all the answers to everyone's problems and questions, and thus try and control all situations and people?
approach the day with joyfulness, grateful for the beauty of another day....a brand new day?
express an interest in people and all that we see around us?
look for answers in Nature, seeing as we are all a part of Nature and if we just be still for a moment and look around us, she will reveal our answers?
think about the balance, rhythm and harmony of life and try and work towards that?
What we are looking at is a redefinition of our life. Periodic but steady redefinition. An interpretation of what we have received from our parents and grandparents regarding every day living and then how we incorporate that interpretation into actual living...every day.
Virginia Woolf asserts that “a self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living.” Being pleased with ourselves as we are is, clearly, not the best thing.
Interpreting and incorporating wisdom gained into our thinking and then redefining ourselves can be a nightmare, but I don't think it is really an option. The question then begs, do we just plain ignore the fact that we need to change some of our ways, add and subtract some of the characteristics we've adopted consciously or unconsciously, adapt and tweak our thinking? Do we discard out of hand the wisdom handed down to us because we think it is not relevant to us in this day and age? Are we filling our days with all kinds of activities, simply so that our senses get dulled and we don't have to face the brutal fact that we are not living but just existing?
Since we are alive, we may as well do something about our life and make living a joyous experience...